Glover looked at his watch; it was Giddings' trick at Medicine Bend,
and he made little doubt of getting what he asked for. He walked to
the eating-house and from there directly across to the roundhouse, and
started a hurry call for the night foreman. He found him at a desk
talking with Paddy McGraw, the engineer that was to have taken out
Number Six.
"Paddy," said Glover, "do you want to take me to Medicine to-night?"
"They've just cancelled Number Six."
"I know it."
"You don't have to go to-night, do you?"
"Yes, with Mr. Brock's car. This isn't as bad as the night you and I
and Jack Moore bucked snow at Point of Rocks," said Glover,
significantly. "Do you remember carrying me from the number seven
culvert clean back to the station after the steampipe broke?"
"You bet I do, and I never thought you'd see again after the way your
eyes were cooked that night. Well, of course, if you want to go
to-night, it's go, Mr. Glover. You know what you're about, but I'd
never look to see you going out for fun a night like this."
"I can't help it. Yet I wouldn't want any man to go out with me
to-night unwillingly, Paddy."
"Why, that's nothing. You got me my first run on this division. I'd
pull you to hell if you said so."
Glover turned to the night foreman. "What's the best engine in the
house?"
"There's the 1018 with steam and a plough."
Glover started. "The 1018?"
"She was to pull Six." The mountain man picked up the telephone, and
getting the operators, sent a rush message to Giddings. Leaving final
instructions with the two men he returned to the telegraph office.
When Giddings's protest about ordering a train out on such a night
came, Glover, who expected it, choked it back--assuming all
responsibility--gave no explanations and waited. When the orders came
he inspected them himself and returned to the car. Gertrude, in the
car alone, was drinking coffee from a hotel tray on the card table.
"It was very kind of you to send this in," she said, rising cordially.
"I had forgotten all about dinner. Have you succeeded?"
"Yes. Could you eat what they sent?"
"Pray look. I have left absolutely nothing and I am very grateful. Do
I not seem so?" she added, searchingly. "I want to because I am."
He smiled at her earnestness. Two little chairs were drawn up at the
table, and facing each other they sat down while Gertrude finished her
coffee and made Glover take a sandwich.
When the train conductor came in ten minutes later Glover talked with
him. While the men spoke Gertrude noticed how Glover overran the
dainty chair she had provided. She scrutinized his rough-weather garb,
the heavy hunting boots, the stout reefer buttoned high, and the
leather cap crushed now with his gloves in his hand. She had been
asking him where he got the cap, and a moment before, while her
attention wandered, he had told her the story of a company of Russian
noblemen and engineers from Vladivostok, who, during the summer, had
been his guests, nominally on a bear hunt, though they knew better than
to hunt bears in summer. It was really to pick up points on American
railroad construction. He might go, he thought, the following spring
to Siberia himself, perhaps to stay--this man that feared the wind--he
had had a good offer. The cap was a present.